Harlan Crow | |
---|---|
Born | Harlan Rogers Crow 1949 (age 74–75) Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
Citizenship | United States Saint Kitts and Nevis (since 2012) |
Education | Emory University University of Texas at Austin (BBA) |
Occupation | Real estate developer |
Political party | Republican |
Spouses |
|
Children | 3 |
Father | Trammell Crow |
Relatives | Stuart Crow (brother) |
Harlan Rogers Crow (born 1949) is an American-Kittitian [1] real estate developer and conservative activist. He is the former chairman and CEO of the Trammell Crow Company, which was founded by his father, Trammell Crow. His father was described as the "largest landlord in the United States" by Forbes magazine. [2]
Crow is the cofounder of Club for Growth and is a major donor to the Republican Party and American conservative causes. His relationship with United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, which has lasted for over twenty years, has been the subject of significant news reporting since 2023 due to Thomas's not reporting (on financial disclosure forms) gifts and vacations Crow had provided to Thomas and his wife.
Harlan Crow was born in Dallas, the third son of Margaret Doggett Crow and real estate developer Trammell Crow. Margaret Crow survived the sinking of the SS Athenia, the first British ship sunk by Nazi Germany during World War II. [3] He has four brothers and one sister. He attended high school at the Randolph-Macon Academy in Front Royal, Virginia. [4] He later attended Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, before he transferred to the University of Texas, where he received a BBA.[ citation needed ]
Crow worked as a leasing agent for Trammell Crow Houston Industrial from 1974 to 1978 and managed the Dallas Office Building development operations of Trammell Crow Company from 1978 to 1986. He then served as President of the Wyndham Hotel Company from 1986 [5] to 1988. He assumed responsibility for Crow Holdings in 1988, [6] doing so during a downturn in the company's finances. [7] Crow diversified the company and took on more property management business, revitalizing the company. [8]
He currently serves as chairman of Crow Holdings [6] and was formerly its chief executive officer. [9]
Crow is a member of the founding committee of the Club for Growth and has served on the board of the American Enterprise Institute since 1996. [10] [11] [12] He has donated almost $5 million to Republican campaigns and conservative groups.
Crow donated $500,000 toward publicity campaigns for President George W. Bush's nominees for the Supreme Court. [8] In 2009, Crow mounted an unsuccessful multimillion-dollar campaign to block the establishment of a publicly owned convention hotel in Dallas. [13] Politico reported, that same year, that Crow had provided $500,000 in seed money to establish the Tea Party-affiliated Liberty Central, founded by Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Thomas. [14] [15] Crow declined to confirm or deny whether he was the donor in question, telling The New York Times , in February 2011, "I don't disclose what I'm not required to disclose." [16]
The New Republic reported in 2023 that Crow has been a major donor to the political organization No Labels. [17]
Harlan Crow also donated to many Conservative Democrats, Including Josh Gottheimer, Henry Cuellar, Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, Jim Costa, Vicente Gonzalez, Jared Golden, Ed Case, Elissa Slotkin, [18] Dean Phillips, Abigail Spanberger, Susie Lee, Lou Correa, Scott Peters and Josh Harder. [19]
Crow and his second wife, Kathy, have three children. [4] [20] Kathy Crow earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1989 [21] and an MBA from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University (SMU). She is a member of the SMU board of trustees and a member of the executive boards of the Cox School of Business and the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development. [22] In 2014, the Crows donated $5 million to build the Kathy Crow Commons at SMU. [23]
Crow is a member of the all-male Bohemian Club, and as early as 1997 he had hosted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as a guest at the group's annual Bohemian Grove summer gathering, [24] [25] having met Thomas in the mid-1990s. [8] Crow was also a friend and former business partner of the publisher Wick Allison. [26]
The Intercept and Project on Government Oversight reported in 2023 that Crow and his family purchased citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis through the citizenship-by-investment program in 2012, raising concerns about the billionaire's ability to shelter assets and obscure financial transactions by taking advantage of the island nation's banking secrecy laws. [27] [28]
In addition to providing initial funding for his wife's founding of Liberty Central in 2009; [14] in 2023, ProPublica reported that Crow had given lavish gifts to Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over a period of 20 years. The gifts include a $19,000 Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass. Crow gave Thomas a portrait of the justice and his wife, according to the painter, Sharif Tarabay. Tax filings show that Crow's foundation also gave $105,000 to the Yale Law School, Thomas's alma mater, for the "Justice Thomas Portrait Fund". Justice Thomas has accepted numerous week-long luxury trips, including island-hopping on Crow's superyacht, international and domestic private jet travel, and private resort stays. [29]
On April 13, 2023, ProPublica reported that Crow had quietly paid Thomas for property occupied by Thomas's mother, despite law requiring disclosure of property sales by public officials. [30] Crow said he bought the property with the intent of later turning the home into a public museum dedicated to Thomas. The property included two vacant lots. [31] Soon after the purchase, an architecture firm received permits to begin $36,000 of improvements, while Thomas's mother continues to live there. [32] [33]
Allegations have risen that Crow has been "subsidizing the lifestyle of Thomas and his wife" as Thomas continued to support conservative causes on the Supreme Court. [30]
Under rules that went into effect on March 14, 2023, justices must disclose many forms of gifts they receive; but exceptions exist if a gift of food, lodging, or entertainment is deemed "personal in nature" and the hospitality has been directly offered by an individual who has a personal relationship to the government official in question. [34] The new rules do however require disclosure of stays at commercial properties as well as private jet travel. [35]
Legal experts cited by ProPublica say that Thomas did not disclose the gifts, violating a financial disclosure law and ethical norms for judges. [29] [36] According to Crow, he has "never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue". [8] Democratic lawmakers reacted to the revelations by demanding Thomas's resignation and calling for an investigation. [35]
In a May 2023 letter Crow's lawyer said that the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Dick Durbin, did not have "the authority to investigate Mr. Crow's personal friendship with Justice Thomas." [37]
Crow's Dallas residence has an extensive collection of historical artifacts, including communist and Nazi memorabilia. His residence houses two paintings by Adolf Hitler and a signed copy of Mein Kampf . [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] Crow's backyard garden features what he named the 'Garden of Evil', [43] which is home to at least 20 statues of authoritarian leaders and Communist icons including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, Karl Marx, Hosni Mubarak, Josip Broz Tito, Nicolae Ceausescu, Walter Ulbricht, Gavrilo Princip, Bela Kun, and Che Guevara. [44] [45] [46] Crow acquired these former public monuments after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. [3] According to Crow, he collects such memorabilia because he "hates communism and fascism". [47] Crow also owns original paintings by Claude Monet, Rembrandt Peale, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Winston Churchill, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. [48]
Crow's private library contains a collection of 8,500 books and manuscripts including historical documents from Juan Ponce de León, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, George Washington, Robert E. Lee, and all the signers of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. [48]
In 1984, Crow and his father formed a company, Rochelle Charter Inc., whose purpose was to lease out their new yacht, the Michaela Rose. In June 2023, Crow's attorney said that the yacht was used by Crow's friends, family, and employees. That does not meet the legal standard that for yacht leasing to be considered a for-profit business (and thus expenses to be deductible on tax returns): the yacht needed to be regularly chartered to third parties at fair market value. [49]
In a February 2024 letter to Crow, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden asked for justification for Crow's tax deductions, writing that “Any effort to mischaracterize a yacht used as a pleasure craft as a business is a run of the mill tax scam, plain and simple. [50] Committee investigators determined that the yacht was not legally licensed to be chartered out for the transportation of passengers for hire in the United States. [51]
Southern Methodist University (SMU) is a private research university in University Park, Texas, with a satellite campus in Taos County, New Mexico. SMU was founded on April 17, 1911, by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South—now part of the United Methodist Church—in partnership with Dallas civic leaders. However, it is nonsectarian in its teaching and enrolls students of all religious affiliations. It is classified among "R-2: Doctoral Universities – High Research Activity".
Leonard Anthony Leo is an American lawyer and conservative legal activist. He was the longtime vice president of the Federalist Society and is currently, along with Steven Calabresi, the co-chairman of the organization's board of directors.
James Harris Simons was an American hedge fund manager, investor, mathematician, and philanthropist. At the time of his death, Simons's net worth was estimated to be $31.4 billion, making him the 51st-richest person in the world. He was the founder of Renaissance Technologies, a quantitative hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York. He and his fund are known to be quantitative investors, using mathematical models and algorithms to make investment gains from market inefficiencies. Due to the long-term aggregate investment returns of Renaissance and its Medallion Fund, Simons was described as the "greatest investor on Wall Street," and more specifically "the most successful hedge fund manager of all time".
Fred Trammell Crow was an American real estate developer from Dallas, Texas. He is credited with the creation of several major real estate projects, including the Dallas Market Center, Peachtree Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, California.
Dallas Market Center is a 5 million square foot wholesale trade center in Dallas, Texas, United States, located at 2200 Stemmons Freeway, housing showrooms which sells consumer products including gifts, lighting, home décor, apparel, fashion accessories, shoes, tabletop/housewares, gourmet, floral, and holiday products. The marketplace is closed to the public but open to certified retail buyers and interior designers, manufacturers, and industry professionals. Large-scale market events are held at the center throughout the year. Dallas Market Center is owned by Dallas-based Crow Holdings and managed by Market Center Management Company (MCMC), a Crow Holdings subsidiary.
Trammell Crow Center is a 50-story postmodern skyscraper at 2001 Ross Avenue in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas. With a structural height of 708 ft (216 m), and 686 ft (209 m) to the roof, it is the sixth-tallest building in Dallas and the 18th-tallest in the state. The tower was designed by the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and has a polished and flamed granite façade, with 1,200,000 sq ft (110,000 m2) of office space. It was originally built as the new headquarters of Ling-Temco-Vought, which had outgrown its previous headquarters at 1600 Pacific Tower.
John Millard Stemmons was a real estate developer and civic leader in Dallas, Texas. He is best known for his efforts to develop the former flood plain of the Trinity River and his lucrative donation of land for the Stemmons Freeway that was named for his father, Leslie Stemmons.
SMU Dedman School of Law, commonly referred to as SMU Law School or Dedman School of Law, is a law school located in Dallas, Texas. It was founded in February 1925. SMU Law School is located on the campus of its parent institution, Southern Methodist University.
Harold Clark Simmons was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist whose banking expertise helped him develop the acquisition concept known as the leveraged buyout (LBO) to acquire various corporations. He was the owner of Contran Corporation and of Valhi, Inc.,. As of 2006, he controlled five public companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange: NL Industries; Titanium Metals Corporation, the world's largest producer of titanium; Valhi, Inc., a multinational company with operations in the chemicals, component products, Waste Control Specialists, titanium metals industries; CompX International, manufacturer of ergonomic products, and Kronos Worldwide, leading producer and marketer of titanium dioxide.
The Supreme Court Historical Society (SCHS) describes itself as "a Washington, D.C.-based private, nonpartisan, not for profit 501(c)(3) membership organization dedicated to preserving and communicating the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, increasing public awareness of the Court’s contribution to our nation’s rich constitutional heritage, and acquiring knowledge covering the history of the entire Judicial Branch."
Camp Topridge is an Adirondack Park Great Camp bought in 1920 and substantially expanded and renovated in 1923 by Marjorie Merriweather Post, former owner of General Foods and the daughter of C. W. Post. The "camp", near Keese Mill, in the U.S. state of New York, was considered by Post to be a "rustic retreat"; it consisted of 68 buildings, including a fully staffed main lodge and private guest cabins, each staffed with its own butler. It was one of the largest of the Adirondack great camps and possibly the most elaborately furnished.
ProPublica, legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in New York City. ProPublica states that its investigations are conducted by its staff of full-time investigative reporters, and the resulting stories are distributed to news partners for publication or broadcast. In some cases, reporters from both ProPublica and its partners work together on a story. ProPublica has partnered with more than 90 different news organizations and has won several Pulitzer Prizes.
Clarence Thomas is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1991. After Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Supreme Court and has been its longest-serving member since Anthony Kennedy's retirement in 2018. Since Stephen Breyer's retirement in 2022, he is also the Court's oldest member.
Liberty Central was a non-profit conservative political advocacy group founded in 2009 by Ginni Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, with Leonard Leo listed as a director and $500,000 financing from Harlan Crow. Virginia Thomas was formally listed as president and CEO. The group ceased operations in 2012.
Crow Holdings is a privately owned real estate investment and development firm based in Dallas, Texas, US, which has been operating since 1948. Originally founded by Trammell Crow, the firm was expanded under the direction of his son, Harlan Crow, chairman and former CEO. As of 2018, the company employed 450 people through its operating businesses in locations throughout the US. As of 2020, Crow Holdings managed $19.6 billion.
James Conley Justice II is an American businessman and politician who has served as the 36th governor of West Virginia since 2017. Justice was once a billionaire, but his net worth had declined to $513.3 million as of 2021. He inherited a coal mining business from his father and built a business empire with 94 companies, including the Greenbrier, a luxury resort in White Sulphur Springs.
Robert Theron Brockman was an American billionaire businessman and once CEO of Ohio-based Reynolds & Reynolds software company.
The Code of Conduct for Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States was issued on November 13, 2023, to set "ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct" of the members of the Supreme Court. It is the first time in its history that the court has adopted a code of conduct.
Several ethical concerns have arisen in the Roberts Court (2005–present).